Childhood Wish Fulfillment, Chicken Development, and Strange Pickles

 1.) Chicken Yard

It's not fully built yet, but we've got some dog kennel panels lined with chicken wire, and the birds have a little more room to spread their wings. 

They seem happy. 

Our latest struggle is that they've outgrown the chick feeders and the hanging feeder has nowhere to hang in their coop. Because it isn't hanging it doesn't work properly. I have to go out there pick it up and shake it to get the feed to come out. 

2.) Mosquitos

The plauge hath descendeth. 

It's awful, just as I knew it would be. The garden is producing like crazy, but I can't be out there more than a minute or two to harvest it. I'd be out there longer, but Bitty Baby has been insisting that I stay in her line of sight lately. She's a mosquito magnet, and stays up half the night scratching if she gets bit. 

So it's been lightning round chicken chores and garden chores. The weeds have been taking advantage of the circumstances too.

3.) Water Tank

We're looking at taking this water tank home and installing it at our house. 

Stay tuned for developments. 

4.) Watermelon pickle

I made these last summer, and they're actually not bad. They're very good wrapped in bacon and put under an oven broiler. 

They're unique in that you have to suck as much of the watermelon rind flavor (such as it is) out of the pieces via a brine overnight and then boiling in fresh water and then let soak for several hours (which has turned into overnight because I have yet to lug the canner out and monopolize the kitchen for an afternoon). You're not working with the fruit so much as seeking to use the basic cell walls of the thing as a vehicle for spiced vinegar syrup. 

The prepped rind is sitting in my fridge at the moment, waiting for me to do the part that actually involves work. Hopefully the longer than prescribed soaking time doesn't mess with the end product. 

5.) Rummage sale 

I have... opinions on church rummage sales. 

I'd give the one our church youth group puts on a 5 out of 10. 

There were some fun deals there. One of my favorites was a type writer that looked at least seventy years old (which I did not buy, because I have nowhere to store it). Books were priced at 50¢ apiece, dishes at $1 apiece, toys at $1- $3 a piece. All pretty decent, though asking that much for toys seemed to be pushing the line. 

Where they lost me was clothes. 

They were asking $2 or $3 a piece for ALL clothes. Adult, baby, it didn't matter. Name brands were priced separately on the more expensive end of the bracket too.

This really rubbed me the wrong way, because I can get those prices at the thrift store. When it comes to baby or kid clothes, I can do much better. Yes, rummage sales are fundraisers and they're trying to get enough for the youth group kids to go do something cool. But how you make money (and get rid of all the junk you've collected) is to offer really cheap prices and drive people into a frenzy so they buy more than they were planning on. 

Because prices on clothes were so high (for a rummage sale), I limited myself to a couple pairs of jeans for Little Boy to grow into (size slim, which he is and are hard to find) and a women's blouse (I usually buy WAY more clothes at these things, especially kid clothes). I went crazy on books though, including two cookbooks I don't really need but that looked cool and an outdated general home repair book that I thought might still be useful since we tend to get everything second hand. 

The best find of the day I saw at checkout. They had a bookshelf filled with collectable dolls. I wasn't too interested, but I looked casually at the miniature Madame Alexander dolls and a Precious Moments figurine. Then I saw one that made my heart stop. I checked the label inside the dress to verify what I was seeing, then asked how much they were charging. "$20" came the answer. I paid it right away. 

She's a Felicity American Girl doll. Not only is she a Felicity doll, but she's an original, back when American girl was owned by the Pleasant Company. 

I have wanted this doll desperately since I was about nine years old. I read all the books in her series repeatedly (I actually owned them, which was rare since we went to the library so much), and checked out the historical supplement book to her series at the library. I saw her movie (which I did not think much of), and whenever the company catalog came in the mail, I'd spend hours pouring over it. The doll was almost $200 even back then, and I knew that money was tight with seven kids in the house (up to nine by the time I left home), so I didn't even ask for it. I just looked at the models in the catalog and played with it vicariously. 

So finding one was a very big deal for me. My inner 9-12 year old about had a heart attack (heck, I probably would have been thrilled to find this when I was in high school). She's not perfect: someone cut and straightened her hair into a bob, her shoes are coming apart, and she's missing some of her original wardrobe. 

But she's a Felicity and she's mine. I think I might look into sewing her a replacement bonnet and shift, and display and enjoy her. Or maybe I'll introduce Little Girl to the books and let her play with her when she's old enough to take good care of her. 

So, not the best rummage sale I've ever been to, but I can't say I left disappointed. 

6.) Airplanes 

As I'm writing this, we're sitting on my in-laws front lawn. There's an air show going on at the nearby Navy Base, and my in laws live right around the area they turn around before heading back to the base to do the next cool trick. We're too cheap to pay admission to the airshow, so we're plane watching instead. 

It's a bit like watching a meteor shower. Long stretches of nothing with occasional instances of shock and awe. 

Well. Occasional instances of, "look kids!! A fighter plane!!" 

We're having fun though. We're having a nice visit with family, and my mother in law set up a craft for the kids. 

Postscript: 

Things picked up. 

And that's what's fit to print.